Just got back from a sojourn to totality in Texas. I had a temporary stay in Castroville, Texas to view the total solar eclipse. The eclipse was reason enough to travel but that is not the whole story.
My sons live out of state. One son lives in Florida and one son lives in Texas. Now it makes more sense. The trip to Texas can be broken up by a half way stop to visit one son and the next day visiting the other. An eclipse is neat but my wife will make the trip to see the kids for any reason. “Load up” is all you have to say and we are headed out to see the kids.
This trip was a marathon drive. Day one consisted of a trek down to Pensacola Florida. It doesn’t matter which way you go, somewhere along the way is interstate construction. What do you do when the high-speed road warriors of the interstate slow down to five miles per hour? Mostly, you just sit there wondering what is holding up the traffic. It could be a wreck or soon enough you get into the construction area and realize that this section of the road is going to slow you down on the return trip as well.
That part of the trip took a whole day.
The second day of the trip was more racing. Construction delays or wrecks slowed this day down. Eighty miles an hour then down to five mph. You can’t tell when it is coming either.
Finally, we arrive at our destination and prepare for the viewing of the natural wonder of the eclipse. We had t-shirts made special for the event. This is our third eclipse. 1970, 2017 and now 2024 were the dates on the back of our shirts. Other people had shirts too. There was lots of excitement where we were viewing the eclipse. There was a small problem though. It was cloudy.
The clouds did start breaking up as it got closer to the time of totality. The clouds would thin and you could see the moon covering the sun. That is an awesome sight. As luck can catch you, the clouds broke and you could see the sun being totally blacked out and then the lights cut off. It is not like the sun setting and gradually getting dark. It becomes night like flipping a switch.
After three minutes, the lights are cut back on and the odd sensation of having night and day in three short minutes reminds you that maybe we take ourselves too seriously.
Watching this you realize that the earth is spinning at 22,000 miles per hour. The sun and the moon have just shown us that we only occupy a little bit of space compared to what we just witnessed. Then you have to think that we are on a tiny planet and if you look at a picture of the milky way galaxy, we are here and the really good stuff is probably 400 million light years away.
That’s an entirely different way of thinking about it. Now you don’t feel so big do you?
The next day we started back to South Carolina. In addition to all the construction and traffic on the roads, we had thunderstorms and tornado warning and high wind on the trip back. The 1400-mile return trip seemed to be even longer than the first part. All the anticipation is fun and the return is just a rainy drive back.
A rainy two-day drive is tough but I am planning to go see the next total eclipse. It will be in 20 years. I have another friend that says he wants to go also. He says he will go and help drive. That will be a help because we will both be in our 90s. “Is that yellow light turning red or green?”
